Apple's New iPads Are Wonderful, But They're Still Missing Something

I haven't touched my iPad Mini
since I started using the iPhone 6 Plus about a month ago. It's
on my nightstand now, probably with no charge left because I've
neglected it for so long.

That's a strange thing for me. I had been addicted to my iPad
Mini since I got it last year. As an iPhone 5S user, I was stuck
with a tiny 4-inch screen that didn't let me get as much work
done. Plus, the battery life was terrible. The iPad quickly
became my device for everything when I was at home or at work —
taking notes, reading books, watching Netflix. There were many
days I used it more than my iPhone.

But the 6 Plus, with its 5.5-inch screen filled the gap. Instead
of lugging around an iPhone, iPad, and laptop, I just need an
iPhone and a MacBook. The newest MacBook Air, which has a 10-hour
battery life and is plenty powerful and portable and can do a lot
more than my iPad, makes the perfect work tool.

I imagine a lot of people are feeling the same way about the
iPad, especially now that the iPhone comes in two bigger screen
sizes. There's less of a reason to buy three Apple gadgets when
two can handle everything just fine. It's showing up in sales,
too. iPad sales were down 10% year-over-year in the second
quarter this year. We'll get numbers for the third quarter on
Oct. 20.

That's why expectations were pretty high Thursday when Apple
unveiled its new iPad models. The original promise of the iPad
was that it would eventually represent the future of productivity
and computing. Eventually it could even replace the Mac. But
right now, the iPad still feels like a content-consumption
device. It's great for videos, reading, and games but doesn't do
enough on the software side to make it a laptop replacement.

Apple unveiled a great tablet on Thursday: the iPad Air 2. After
playing with it for a few minutes following the event, I'm
positive it'll hold onto its title as the best tablet you can
buy.

The iPad Air 2 is an
amazing piece of hardware.Business
Insider

It's clear Apple put a lot of
effort into the design and hardware specs. The iPad Air 2 is a
beautifully crafted machine on the outside and a beast under the
hood. It's only 6.1 mm thin and weighs just under a pound. Plus
it still has the same 10-hour battery life on top of an improved
glare-resistant screen, faster processor, fingerprint sensor, and
better graphics.

But it's the software side of things that worries me about the
iPad's future. iOS on the iPad is nearly identical to iOS on the
iPhone. And with the phablet-size iPhone 6 Plus and even the
4.7-inch iPhone 6, I think it's going to be tough to persuade
people to buy both until the iPad is able prove itself as
something other than a supersize iPhone.

When I asked one of the Apple employees to walk me through the
tablet's new features, it felt as if he didn't have much to say.
He mostly focused on hardware like the improved camera,
fingerprint sensor, and overall design. As for software, the
camera app has new time-lapse and slow-motion shooting modes, but
that's about it. And it's nothing you can't get on the iPhone.

A few things that could fix that. As 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman
reported a few months ago, Apple is testing an update to iOS
8 that'll let you run two apps side by side, sort of like you can
on Samsung's tablets and Windows 8 tablets.

And as Bloomberg
reported this summer, Apple is working on a larger version of
the iPad with a 12.9-inch screen, versus the 9.7-inch screen on
the iPad Air 2. That's the device I'm really looking forward to
seeing, assuming Apple pulls the trigger and releases it. That
extra screen space plus new multitasking features could help turn
the iPad into the
dream hybrid computing device that can finally live up to the
tablet's original promise.

Until then, the iPad we have is more of the same. That's not
saying it's a bad device, or that things are hopeless. But I have
the feeling what Apple unveiled Thursday won't be enough to
reverse the iPad's recent decline.